


Hieroglyphs

by comeaftermejackrobinson



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Birthmarks, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-15 00:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9212261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeaftermejackrobinson/pseuds/comeaftermejackrobinson
Summary: The moment they see and touch each other’s birthmark, they understand everything. It’s a hieroglyph only they can read.





	1. Chapter 1

 

> We went around without looking for each other, but knowing we went around to find each other.
> 
>  
> 
> **Julio Cortázar**

  
  


He sees the birthmark on her breast when they make love for the first time.

 

They’re kneeling on the centre of the bed, naked, facing each other.

 

He carefully traces it with his fingers.

 

His eyes never leave hers.

 

She shivers, comes alive under his touch.

 

A name wants to escape through her quivering lips. A name that isn’t _his_ now but that _was his_ _once_. When they met and fell in love the first time, many centuries ago. When she herself had a different name.

 

Her birthmark resembles a bite.

 

A cobra snake bite.

 

He takes her hand in his, places it on his stomach, where his own birthmark is etched on his skin.

 

His looks and feels more like scar tissue.

 

Her eyes begin to water when she caresses it.

 

He stabbed himself because of her in another life.

 

She knows he’d be willing to die for her in this life, too.

 

He’d always bleed himself dry for her.

 

In another life he was hers, and she was his.

 

And now they have found each other again. In this century. In this lifetime.

 

Their first love story, the original one, is written on both their skins.

 

The moment they see and touch each other’s birthmark, they understand everything.

 

It’s a hieroglyph only they can read.

 

They didn’t know, didn’t have a clue, but now they do.

 

Details of their past lives flash before their eyes.

 

They remember now.

 

It all makes sense, suddenly.

 

The pulse, the magnetism, the uncontrollable desire they’ve always felt towards the other are no longer a mystery.

 

They can have wordless conversation with their eyes because their souls speak a very unique language that no one else knows- a language that is as ancient as their souls themselves are.

 

“You died in my arms…” she says softly. “You took your life because you thought I’d taken mine. And then I did take mine because I couldn’t bear, wouldn’t bear, a world without you in it.”

 

He wipes away the tears that are streaming down her face.

 

“I died where I had lived. In your arms. I have no regrets, dear. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I wouldn’t change a second of the many lifetimes I must have had to go through before finding you once more.”

 

It’s taken them many lifetimes, but they are together again.

 

The triple pillar of the world and the queen of the Nile.


	2. Chapter 2

> Two souls don't find each other by simple accident.
> 
>  
> 
> **Jorge Luis Borges**

  


They take their time to rediscover one another in this new flesh, these new bones.

 

They pause every now and then.

 

Sometimes it’s because the experience is too overwhelming.

 

(They always knew the first time would be overwhelming as the Honourable Phryne Fisher and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson. They never imagined it would be a reunion of two souls that had belonged to a soldier and a queen before they were given to the people they are in the present).

 

Other times they stop to point at something they remember from their past lives, from the passionate lovemaking they’ve shared back then in ancient Egypt.

 

(Different birthmarks he’s had all of his life as Jack Robinson, but that now he remembers to have once been battle wounds).

 

(Random beauty marks none of her previous lovers payed much attention to- in this life as well as in the others-, but that he worships as much as he does the rest of her because he’s seen them, tasted them, kissed them _before_ ).

 

They’ve done this more times than any of them can count. Only that they were inhabiting different bodies.

 

But their souls never forgot one another.

 

The connection remains intact.

 

Everything they’ve ever gone through pales in comparison to this moment.

 

The moment of truth.

 

Now they know who they are, who they’ve always been.

 

It’s like awakening from a very long dream.

 

They come undone in each other’s arms.

 

Soft moans, wordless conversation, hearts beating in perfect synchrony.

 

They hold onto each other, touch every inch of their new skins.

 

They want to commit this to memory.

 

It is beautiful.

 

She lays draped on his chest afterwards.

 

He plays with her hair with one hand, sends shivers down her spine by tracing the right side of her body with the other. She speaks in whispers. He hangs onto her every word.

 

“I thought a thousand kisses from my lips would suffice.”

 

She props herself up on one elbow, and traces his lips with a fingertip.

 

It sends shivers down _his_ spine.

 

“I thought that Anubis wouldn't dare touch you if I protested.”

 

She mentions the name of a god she once believed reigned over the dead and had forgotten until now. She resented him in that life as much as she resents the Christian God in this one for allowing her sister to be murdered.

 

She takes the hand that is playing with her hair. She guides it towards her breast and settles it there. Her own hand rests atop his.

 

“But then I embraced the idea of death myself. I craved the stroke of death like I had once craved your touch, my love”

 

He cups her breast. His thumb draws circles over the birthmark that resembles two snake bites.

 

This is where the cobra bit his Cleopatra.

 

This is where he now feels the beat of his Phryne's heart.

 

“It hurt, but I desired it so. I knew no one would save me- the only antidote was you, and you were gone.”

 

He kisses her softly.

 

Her lips.

 

Her cheeks.

 

Her eyelids.

 

“May nothing ever tear us apart in this life, love.”

 

“Do you think we've met before? In other lives?” She asks. “That maybe we only remember our first life together each time and not the others? Our life as _them,_ I mean _._ And that, perhaps, when we meet again in the next one we’ve forgotten everything but that first life.”

 

“No. I think it was meant to be _this_ life. It was meant to be _us_. I don't know where our souls have been after the first time, I don't know where they've traveled to before. I just know I remember now. Memories I thought were of dreams, feelings I couldn't understand, it all makes sense now.”

 

“I've had them, too. The dreams. Never made much out of them either.”

 

She touches his birthmark again.

 

It flashes before her eyes: the blood, her hands on his wounded flesh, the sword.

 

She feels the pain all over again.

 

The loss.

 

The guilt.

 

The despair.

 

It is with thirst and desperation that she kisses him. She wants to feel _him_ , breathing and whole. _Alive_.

 

“I wish I could have saved you.”

 

“It wasn't meant to be in that lifetime, Phryne. It was meant for this one. You’ve saved me every day since the first time we've met as who we are now.”

 

She smiles.

 

They have met again now- not before, not after- for a reason.

 

Cleopatra and Antony couldn't save each other. But Phryne and Jack can. They do it every day.

 

“And so have you.” She kisses Jack's birthmarks. Antony's scar. “You have saved me every day.”

  



	3. Chapter 3

 

> Have you ever felt really close to someone? So close that you can’t understand why you and the other person have two separate bodies, two separate skins?
> 
>  
> 
> **Nancy Garden**

  
  


They spend their days cuddled up on the bedroom floor, resting on their sides, facing each other.

 

Their lovemaking is torrid.

 

Their conversations are meaningful and deep.

 

London falls into oblivion.

 

They talk about the Egypt they remember so vividly now.

 

Sometimes they use words.

 

Sometimes it’s just moans of pleasure.

 

Sometimes they communicate wordlessly, soundlessly.

 

They remember doing this before, when Alexandria was their home.

 

When he was a politician and she was a queen.

 

Now he is a police detective and she is- though under different circumstances- still a queen.

 

She’s still a ( _his_ ) goddess.

 

“Do you think there are others like us?” she asks.

 

“Reincarnations?”

 

“Soulmates.”

 

“Yes, I do. I think there must be others.”

 

“Do you think they all find each other like we did? Do you think they all remember who they were the first time they met, the first time they fell in love?”

 

He takes his time to ponder her question.

 

She waits patiently, caresses his birthmark with her fingertips. The memories become clearer, sharper every time she touches it. And she knows he feels the same when he touches hers.

 

She breaks the silence after a moment.

 

She’s never been good at keeping quiet.

 

She’s restless in this life as she was restless in the other one they’ve shared.

 

“This is how you died for me” she tells him, a hand flat on his stomach. “And this,” she takes his hand and places it flat on her breast “this is how I died for you. The tragic end of the greatest love any empire or republic has ever seen is written in hieroglyphs upon our skins so we can read it and remember it over and over again.”

 

He takes her hand and kisses each one of her fingertips.

 

He lets her talk.

 

He loves the sound of her voice.

 

The answer to the question she’s asked him can wait.

 

“Incomplete symbols, a tale told by halves, that only make sense when together. Identifying marks that are part of a riddle that is only understood when we see our past lives’ sacrifice etched on our skin. And that’s when and how we remember who we’ve been, where our souls have been many centuries ago. They belong to us now, but they’ve belonged to _them_ first. And they have always belonged together.”

 

“Soulmates” he repeats the same word she’s used before.

 

“Do you think the others are marked, too?” She tells him what _she_ thinks before he can tell him what he thinks. And he doesn't care, really, because she's always been like that.

 

(Cleopatra was like that, too.)

 

“They’re born with their first love story written in an unique language on their skins.” She begins to explain her theory. “They make nothing of it at first, of course- they think they’re just random birthmarks, everyone’s got them. Until one day,” she takes a deep breath, allows herself to get lost in the warmth of his eyes for a moment before she continues to speak “this meaningful physical and emotional connection is about to happen between them…”

 

He cuts her off and finishes the thought she’s trying to put into words:

 

“The birthmarks are no longer simple and meaningless. In fact, they are no longer birthmarks. They see them for what they truly are: a door to memories from that past life.”

 

She smiles at him.

 

“It is what’s happened to us.”

 

“I think it happens to other people.” He finally answers the question she's asked. “There must be others. Maybe they don’t meet time after time. I’m sure it doesn’t happen to everyone in every lifetime.”

 

She straddles him, her movements very cat-like. She hovers over him on all fours, hands on his shoulders, one knee at each side of his body. To him, she's never looked more beautiful in this life.

 

(He now knows he's seen her like this plenty of times in the other. She was beautiful then, too.)

 

“I want every single life with you.”

 

He closes his eyes and breathes her in.

 

He lets her words wash over him.

 

“Say it again, please.”

 

It almost sounds like he's begging.

 

There was a time when he'd made others beg.

 

But then that man met a certain woman and the tables turned. She was the one holding the power, and he was the one begging.

 

They are the same now.

 

He is at her feet.

 

She is still the queen.

 

“Say it again, please.”

 

“I want every single life with you.”

 

She means it.

 

They become one, move as one, breathe as one.

 

They don't know where one ends or where the other begins.

 

They cry out in pleasure.

 

They hold onto each other.

 

They shiver.

 

“I used to wonder what it was about you that made me fall in love so madly, so quickly.” He confesses, breathlessly. “Now I know I've always loved you. I've loved you all my life. In all of my lives.”

 

She's always wondered the same. Why did she fall in love with him, of all men? Why was he so special? Why was he the exception to the rule?

 

She thinks of how much she's always trusted him, how much she's always desired him, not only sexually; she's always wanted his friendship, his partnership, his company.

 

She thinks of how he is the only one that makes her feel safe and complete, and how that always was some kind of mystery to her.

 

Now she's got her answer.

 

Now she knows why.

 

“So have I, Jack.” She says. “I've loved you all my life. In all of my lives.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

> What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined to strengthen each other, to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
> 
>  
> 
> **George Eliot**

  


She lays flat on her stomach, her back exposed to him.

 

He remembers every freckle.

 

He licks every inch of her silky soft skin over and over again with his tongue.

 

She tastes like milk and honey and lavender and orange peel.

 

It's addictive, intoxicating, and he cannot get enough. It makes him drunk with love, it fills him up with adoration and lust.

 

(Everything about her does.)

 

He remembers sitting by the tub and watching her bathe in milk, her servants dismissed for the occasion. She would always touch herself for him, and he would always dry her off with his tongue.

 

(Sometimes they did both things at the same time.)

 

She remembers being worshipped by all but only caring that he did. She remembers restlessly seeking out her own pleasure, and pleasuring others only because to have them come undone between her legs made her feel even more powerful and greater than she knew herself to be. But she also remembers that when it came to him she couldn't be selfish, and so she gave him her all.

 

Antony was Cleopatra’s true love and the only man she would have got down on her knees for. And yet she never had to because he showed her his love by never asking that from her.

 

She feels the same in this lifetime. She's been wanted and adored by many men, desired and lusted over for her beauty, admired for her wits. She's had every single one of them; a parade of artists, intellectuals, athletes and even blue collar workers have visited her boudoir and shared some hours of pleasure in her bed. She's always wanted them gone by the following morning, and they have never given her- or got from her for that matter- nothing more than physical satisfaction.

 

But it's different with Jack the same way it was different for Cleopatra and Antony. She wants him forever. And then she wants to find him again in her next life, and in the next, and in the next. She wants to always find him, no matter how long it takes.

 

They will always be soulmates and their love story will always be written in hieroglyphs upon their skin, and every time they find each other they will just know they are together again, two halves of a whole reunited in a new life.

 

Complete.

 

He turns her over, kisses her mouth.

 

She can taste herself on his tongue, and every gaudy night they ever spent together in ancient Egypt, and the promise of the thousands of gaudy nights they have ahead of themselves as Jack and Phryne.

 

She runs a hand through his hair and then traces his face with her fingertips.

 

He is so precious to her.

 

“Help me remember more” she asks. “Make me feel like no time has passed, like death never did us part. A story like ours should never be interrupted, not even by death.”

 

“It was never interrupted, Phryne. Everywhere my soul’s been, it's always belonged with yours. It was always incomplete without yours.”

 

She smiles and moans incoherent words of pleasure as he buries himself deep inside of her once more.

 

Now they feel complete.


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

> I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.
> 
> **F. Scott Fitzgerald**

 

They take a stroll around a London park under the moonlit sky. They stop walking every now and then, and he cups her face in his hands, kisses her on the mouth softly, and then he presses his forehead to hers. They stay like that for a few minutes before they keep on walking. They soak up in the moment. They hold hands and look into each other’s eyes lovingly, as if they were trying to read the hieroglyphs written in them.

 

Her eyes. They are as beautiful and unique as the rest of her.

 

He’s always loved them.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

He loves them even more now because he knows they’re the windows to her soul.

 

The soul that is tied with his for all eternity.

 

He knows he’ll love her forever.

 

It’s becoming a more natural feeling, possessing the knowledge of who you were many centuries ago and remembering vividly details of how you lived that life and what happened in it.

 

It’s easier because he’s got her to share this with. He’s learning that anything is easier if you share it with your soulmate.

 

 _Soulmates_ . She was the one that said the word out loud. She’s the one that named this tie they have that seems to be stronger than time itself. Even it is, maybe, as old as time. He thinks it’s his favorite word now- _soulmates_. He loves the sound of it even more than he loves the sound of her name, because their names are always changing, life after life they become someone else, but their souls stay always the same. They are two halves of a whole piece that fit perfectly together in spite of time passing and names changing.

 

Whether it’s under London’s moonlit sky or the burning sun in ancient Egypt, or back in the city of Melbourne where they met as Jack and Phryne and fell in love, they’ve always belonged hand in hand with each other. They will always be meant to be.

 

In this life.

 

In the others.

 

The more that he sees her, the more that he knows there is no one else he’d rather be forever linked to.

 

He’s seen her at her best.

 

He’s seen her at her worst.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

He knows all of her wounds, all of her flaws. She’s let him see them.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

She’s seen all of his scars.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

(She’s tended to all of them, too.)

 

He can’t see himself loving anyone else this deeply, this madly.

 

In any life.

 

In any timeline.

 

There isn’t a single thing about her that he doesn’t love.

 

He tells her.

 

He tells her all the time.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

He loves her courage, her honesty. She always speaks her mind, she’s never scared to voice her thoughts and opinions. She never backs off when she comes up with a plan, when she’s struck by a great idea. He loves her intellect, her intelligence, her wits. She’s wise and deep and smart.

 

She is loyal and will never let anyone go without help in their time of need. She's always there when a loved one needs her, when they're hurt or in trouble. She'd protect her friends fiercely in any circumstance because they are her family. And he loves her for that.

 

He loves how she lights up any room she walks in, how the world seems to stop in its axis every time she appears, how everyone just stares at her in awe because they’re completely taken by her beauty.

 

He loves her for her good heart. He loves her because she throws herself fully, always jumps head first, into everything she believes in. She’s selfless and caring, and the world is a better place because she’s in it.

 

He is a better man because he’s got her.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

And even if she can be reckless sometimes, and infuriating, and stubborn, and act a little dangerously, he loves all of that too. She’s worth every headache she’s ever given him. Everything about her that drives him up the wall, he would not change a single thing. He’d never change her. She is who she is, and she’s glorious and magnificent.

 

He doesn’t care that she drives him crazy.

 

Madness is all the more exciting and enjoyable if it’s brought upon him by someone like her.

 

And he loves that, too.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

He loves that she is his soulmate.

 

She’s his beginning, and his middle, and his end.

 

His everything.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

“Do you think she came back?”

 

Her question breaks the silence.

 

He understands right away who she’s talking about.

 

She doesn’t need to explain a thing to him.

 

They have this rare, beautiful gift only soulmates possess: they can communicate wordlessly, only with their touch or with their eyes. And they do it all the time, they’ve been doing it even before they recognized the other from the past life they shared many years ago. They didn’t comprehend the magic working behind it before then, but they always knew, always sensed, that it was something unique and special that only they had.

 

She asks him another question before he can answer to the first one:

 

“Do you think you only come back if you’ve found your soulmate before? That you only come back if you have someone to be reunited with?” She keeps on talking, and he just listens. “I don’t think _everyone_ necessarily comes back, I don’t think it’s a given. I think there’s a reason, some sort of explanation, some sort of rule- _something_ that has to be there for you to be allowed to come back as someone else. At least that’s what I _feel_ inside every time I think about it: that we, the reincarnated, are just a few. That _this_ isn’t something that happens universally.”

 

He takes a minute to make sense of his thoughts, and he only speaks when he's sure of what he wants to say. This is important for her, so it's also important for him, and he wants to say the right thing. He wants to say something that matters.

 

“I don’t think it’s something that happens universally, either.” He’s been thinking about it himself, and he also _feels_ things inside, things that vibrate within him. And the vibrations sound like words and whispers and phrases, and sometimes he makes sense of things based on what he _feels_ alone.

 

It’s another rare gift, he supposes.

 

And he shares it with her.

 

His soulmate.

 

Just like she's just shared with him that she's been thinking about the possibility that Janey might have come back as someone else, somewhere else.

 

“She would be nineteen now. I mean, she would be nineteen if she had come back. Janey would have been twenty eight if she hadn't been kidnapped. She was two years younger than me.”

 

They sit down on a bench overlooking the park’s lake. The moon that they are looking at tonight is the same moon they once looked at when they were Antony and Cleopatra. She was witness to their past, their love, their death, and their rebirth.

 

Phryne puts her head on his shoulder and he wraps an arm around her.

 

“When I was little, after it had just happened, I liked to think Janey had gone to live on the moon.” He kisses the top of her head and lets her talk uninterrupted. “Now I wonder if she went to live someplace else, as someone else. Reborn. Another face, another eyes, another voice, another name.” She swallows hard and holds back tears. “Another sister, perhaps?”

 

She lets out a little laugh.

 

It's a sad laugh.

 

He loves it all the same, for he loves everything about her. Even the parts that hurt.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

“If she came back, I wonder in what country she is now. I mean, we were in Egypt once, and then Australia, and who knows where else we've been in the middle.” She allows herself to daydream for a moment. “I hope she's in a country where they treat women right. And that she remembers me from time to time, even if it's only in the shape of thoughts she can't make sense of.”

 

“Wherever she is, Phryne, I am sure your soul and hers are tied somehow. Maybe they always were, even before this life.”

 

“How can you be so sure?” She asks. “I wish _I_ was so sure.”

 

He cups her face in his hands again and presses kisses all over her beautiful face.

 

“Believe me, my love, once your soul touches another it is impossible to forget you. Janey’s soul, I believe, is still tied to yours. It doesn't matter where she is now. Her soul and yours are tied. If they weren't before this lifetime, then they surely were from this one on.”

 

Her eyes are watering with tears.

 

“Thank you.” She whispers. “You always know what to say to make me feel better. In this life. And in the other.”

 

She closes her eyes and the tears stream freely down her face.

 

He catches them all with his thumbs as they fall.

 

“I wish I knew if I'll ever see her again. If our paths cross, will we recognize each other? You and I were partners, best friends, for almost two years before we remembered being Antony and Cleopatra. Our souls only recognized each other when we were about to make love for the first time.”

 

“Maybe it's different in every case. We were lovers in ancient Egypt.” He reminds her. “We have birthmarks in the shape of the wounds we suffered when we died for each other; we recognized each other when we saw and touched them. It doesn't mean it's the same for everyone.”

 

He kisses her forehead.

 

“Have faith, love. Whatever will be will be.”

 

In this life.

 

And in all the others.


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

> “Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same… If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
> 
>  
> 
> **Emily Brontë**

 

They have been back in Melbourne for a month and a half when their paths cross during an investigation. It is an interesting one, but it's also very dangerous.

 

There's a killer on the loose and he knows he's wanted.

 

He's already murdered four policemen.

 

He wants to do it again.

 

They want to catch him before he catches _them_.

 

“ _I have a pocket full of bullets and all of them have got your name_ ” _,_ the anonymous letter reads.

 

It's a race against the clock.

 

And they're running out of time.

 

Their days in London now feel as far away as their lives in ancient Egypt, but somehow when they make love or hold hands or stare into each other's eyes, it all seems like yesterday. It's strange, really, how love can change one's perception and understanding of the tick of clocks and the pass of time.

 

She has a feeling, something that vibrates within herself and that she imagines is a warning sign, telling her they must be careful or they will run out of time.

 

In this life.

 

It happened once, before. They were the queen of the Nile and the triple pillar of the world. They had believed themselves to be immortals sometimes, but they had been wrong. They were made of flesh and bones, like they are now. And hearts stop beating and blood stops flowing.

 

And those are the only certainties any life's got to offer: that it one day will end.

 

“ _I have a pocket full of bullets and they all have got your name_ ”, the murdered wrote in the letter addressed to him.

 

She is scared she will lose him, her soulmate, in the near future. Every time she tries to convince herself otherwise, or when he tries to reassure her that they'll catch him before he harms anyone else, something within her vibrates and she imagines it's a warning sign. And she gets scared, scared that maybe her soul _knows_ its other half will soon be taken from it.

 

_I have a pocket full of bullets and they all have got your name._

 

It's a race against time, and she can hear the tick of the clock. There's a murderer on the loose and he's sending Jack threats. They need to find him before he finds them, before something terrible happens. She would never forgive herself if something happened to him. And she isn't sure she'd be able to keep on going without him, without her other half.

 

Her soulmate.

 

Last time he died, she ended her own life because she had found it unbearable. She had not wanted to exist without him. How could the world go on if he wasn't in it? She had killed herself to be with him in the afterlife. They reunited in this life, as Jack and Phryne. Now they know who they were many centuries ago, when they first met and fell in love. They are together again. She isn't going to lose him a second time. She doesn't think she can go through it again- she didn't even have the courage and the guts to go through it the very first time. He died for her once, and then she died for him. She knows he'd do the same a million times, and she also knows she'd feel incomplete without him.

 

_(Whatever happened to you, Phryne Fisher. So now you think you need a man to be complete?_

 

He's not any man.

 

This is different, has always been different.)

 

What if this story ends in tragedy, too? What if every time their souls meet, every time they reunite, it ends in tragedy? Could it be that their deaths are written in the stars just like their love is written in hieroglyphs on their skin? Could it be that they're doomed to lose each other in terrible ways? Could it be that their love is meant to always be interrupted, their time always meant to be cut short abruptly?

 

She doesn't want to think about it.

 

She doesn't want to imagine what will happen if they don't catch this madman before he can pull the trigger.

 

_I have a pocket full of bullets and they all have got your name._

 

She isn't one to pray, but she likes to think she has always been one to hope. And right now she hopes that she's mistaken and that their tragic ending isn't written in the stars and likely to repeat itself in this life as well, that the only thing about them in writing is the eternal love for each other that is etched on their skin in hieroglyphs only they can read.

 

(One day a letter that is addressed to her arrives at Wardlow. It reads _I have a pocket full of bullets and they all have his name. Ask him what kind of flowers he’d like you to take to his grave_. That day she does pray.)

 

They do run out of time.

 

There’s a killer on the loose, and the killer’s feeling trapped.

 

And everyone knows any animal gets the most dangerous when it feels trapped.

 

Shots get fired.

 

All bullets miss her.

 

Some bullets miss him.

 

Constable Collins takes the killer down with a clean shot, but he's two seconds too late: the last shot the man's fired impacts on Jack's stomach almost at the same time the bullet from Collins makes a hole in the back of his head.

 

A scream of terror from Phryne pierces his ears. It almost hurts more than the bullet buried in his body does.

 

He's on the floor and he can't breathe. The pain is unbearable.

 

(It's not the worst he's felt, though. There was one time he thought she had died in a car wreckage. That time the pain had been excruciating. This is nothing compared to that one day. It is unbearable, yes, but it's not the worst. He is better prepared to face his own death that he ever was, or ever will be, to face hers.)

 

His clothes are soaked up in blood.

 

She tries to make it stop.

 

Her hands are now soaked in his blood, too.

 

_I have a pocket full of bullets and they all have got your name._

 

It can't be it.

 

_Ask him what kind of flowers he'd like you to take to his grave._

 

He can't die.

 

He can't leave her.

 

It can't end like this.

 

And so she tells him.

 

“Listen to me, detective inspector,” She tries to hold back tears, tries to ignore the knot in her throat and the one in her stomach. Talking proves difficult, but she tries. She owes him to try. She can't let him go, he needs to know she won't let him go “you don't get to do this to me, alright?”

 

He tries to say something, but she presses a finger to his mouth while she presses the palm of her other hand to his wound.

 

“Hush, don't talk. Save it for later, whatever it is. We'll talk later.”

 

She hears Constable Collins saying something but she doesn't understand what it is. Something about help being on its way. Or at least she wants to believe he said that.

 

“Phryne…”

 

“No talking, Jack.” She reminds him.

 

Her whole body is shaking.

 

And so is his.

 

“Please, Phryne,” He wants to say this even if it's the last thing he ever does. (He is sure that it will be.) “Please, promise me you won't go before it's time. Please”

 

He wants to make sure she won't do it again. He wants her to promise she won't kill herself because she's lost him.

 

“I'm not going anywhere and neither are you!” she cries.

 

“Phryne, please… Please find me in the next life, alright? Will you?” It takes every ounce of strength he's still got to ask this one thing. “But only when it's time, alright? Find me when it's time… find me in the next life.”

 

“I still have you in this one.” Phryne cries. “You are not dying on me.”

 

His vision is blurred.

 

He can't see her anymore.

 

And yet she's the only thing he can see.

 

His whole life flashes before his eyes.

 

The most beautiful memories are made of her.

 

He begins to fall asleep.

 

He doesn't hear her screams.

 

He doesn't hear her repeatedly saying that she loves him and that she needs him to stay.

 

The very last thought that crosses his mind is that he loves her, he loves her and death won't take that from him. It didn't do it before, it won't do it this time.

 

And then he does fall asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

> How we need another soul to cling to. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Sylvia Plath**

  
  


The gunshot wound leaves a scar on his stomach just above his birthmark. 

 

She kisses it tenderly every time they make love, and promises him- and herself- to always be thankful for their second chance at this life. 

 

They often wonder if he'll have a birthmark that will resemble this scar in his next life, and if whoever they get to be then will remember they once were Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and the Honourable Phryne Fisher when they undress each other for the first time and she sees and runs her fingers through that particular skin patch that is slightly darker and rougher to the touch.

 

The memories of the days he spent at the hospital haunt her from time to time. He doesn't remember much about them, and she's thankful for that. She only told him he put up a hell of a fight and proved to be as stubborn as she's often told she is. He jokes and says she must have rubbed it off on him, that she's the best kind of bad influence there is. But neither one of them laughs. They know how close they came to tragedy repeating itself. They know they were lucky he survived, that they're lucky they're still here.

 

“I'm still here.”

 

He whispers these words in her ear every night before she falls asleep nestled in his chest, and she clings to them like he clinged to life- to this life with her.

 

“I'm still here, Phryne,” he tells her when nightmares disturb her sleep in the middle of the night. She never wakes him up intentionally; he usually feels her tense by his side and opens his eyes a couple of second after she does. He hasn’t been sleeping well, either, so the slightest movements startle him. But they’ll know they’ll pull through. They’re strong individuals, and they’re even stronger together. She’s helped him back on his feet after he got shot. They’re helping each other deal with the aftermath. And he knows in his heart, mind and  _ soul _ that the nightmares will pass, that the memories will eventually fade, and that they will be alright.

 

They have both survived worst things, after all.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

 

Those three words (“ _ I’m still here _ ”) become a sort of mantra that they say- to each other, to themselves- when they need calm and perspective, or a simple reminder that there are no reasons to be scared of shadows. He's still there. Breathing and warm and  _ alive _ and where he belongs. She asked him not to let her, and he didn't. She told him neither of them were going anywhere, and so he stayed. Two soulmates still holding onto each other, forever tied by a love that refuses to let tragedy interrupt it a second time. 

 

The nightmares start to fade away, eventually, and she can sleep as soundly as she always has. He’s no longer startled by the silliest things, and when he wakes up first time in the morning he does it on his own accord and feeling well rested. 

 

Resuming their sex life turns out to be a wonderful experience: they connect with each other on a new level, and it feels different somehow. It still is during their lovemaking that their senses heighten so much they get stronger, more vivid flashes of their past lives, but it’s less about remembering how it was being Antony and Cleopatra and more about enjoying how it is being Jack and Phryne now. 

 

The birthmark on her breast remains the first thing his fingers graze gently every time he helps her undress, though.

 

He always traces it carefully with his fingers, and his eyes never leave hers when he does.

 

And she shivers like the first time, comes alive under his touch like the first time. Every time. 

 

She loves how he takes her hand in his and places it on his stomach, where the birthmark resembling a knife wound now pales in comparison to the brand new, raw gunshot wound scar. It’s a perpetual reminder that he almost bled himself dry in her arms, but that he lived. This time he lived. 

 

Their first love story, the original one, is written in hieroglyphs on their skin. And so is this love story, the one that began as the roaring twenties were ending and that defies every single prejudice the twentieth century may have about modernity and open minded men and women. (Their first love story was defiant like that, too.)

 

They didn’t know when they met, didn’t have a clue, that they were soulmates.

 

Now they do.

 

The pulse, the magnetism, the uncontrollable desire they’ve always felt towards the other has long ago stopped being a mystery. 

 

They still have wordless conversations with their eyes. Their souls speak a very unique language that no one else knows- a language that is as ancient as their souls themselves are. It’s a rare gift, a beautiful one. And now they understand how it came to them, and why.

 

It took them many lifetimes, but their souls are together again. Always defiant, always modern, always fighting.

 

The triple pillar of the world and the queen of the Nile.

 

The noble inspector and the lady detective. 

 

Their souls tied forever by a love that is stronger than tragedy and death.

 

In this life.

 

In the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank everyone that took the time to read this story. The kudos and kind comments you've left have meant the world. You've made me write more, and better, and for that I can only thank you all. 
> 
> I hope you have enjoyed this ride as much as I did.


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